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On this date in 1831, one of the great Spanish liberal officers was shot along with dozens of comrades attempting to spark a revolution. It was a dark time for Spanish liberals under the autocratic rule of Ferdinand VII. Jose Maria Torrijos y Uriarte (Spanish Wikipedia page) was one of the heroes of that downtrodden cause from way back, a noble-born officer who had been made a captain at the precocious age of 13 and been around for all of Spanish liberalism’s greatest early 19th century tragedies. He was in Madrid for the ill-fated uprising against its French occupiers in...

Martin Torrijos becomes president of Panama on a mission to modernize the aging Panama Canal, purge rampant corruption and investigate abuses committed by his father's authoritarian regime. AFP/File Photo Panama's new leader is the son of Omar Torrijos, a populist strongman who ruled the Central American nation from 1968-1981 after a military coup. Martin Torrijos, 41, took the presidency through the ballot box, crushing former president Guillermo Endara, who held office from 1989-1994, in a 47-31 percent electoral victory. He will be sworn in on Wednesday. The Social Democrat entered the political arena in 1994 as vice minister of justice...

<p>Why is this man smiling?</p> <p>This may be one for the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest number of violent deaths caused by an election. Two weeks ago, when a socialist and a conservative vied with one another for the premiership of Jamaica, 80 people were killed. On Election Day, gangs of hoodlums seized ballot boxes at gunpoint and spirited them away.</p>

With Americans focused on problems in the Middle East, particularly those relating to terrorism, and with Republicans relishing recent election victories, we should not forget that a disastrous situation now faces America in our own backyard. Recently, I returned from a visit to Panama, one of the most strategically important nations in the Western Hemisphere. My friend Wilson C. Lucom lives in Panama City – and has been warning Americans of the threat now posed by the increasing communist influence in Central America. We don't hear about it on the nightly news, but revolution and radicalism have been sweeping Latin...